Member Article

How Boundary Trauma Leads to Eating Disorders

Joanna Poppink, LMFT

Many people believe eating disorders are about food, weight, or appearance. In reality, they are often rooted in boundary trauma—both the kind we recognize, like abuse, and the kind we overlook, like overindulgence. Both forms limit a person's ability to recognize and cope with life challenges. This article explores how ignoring a child's individuality and needs through boundary violations can distort a person's sense of self and lead to eating disorders. Healing begins with understanding the deeper causes and learning to restore and protect one's inner limits.

Introduction: Why Do Eating Disorders Begin?

Hundreds of people have asked me why someone develops an eating disorder. While many factors are involved, one critical theme runs through every story I've heard: the relentless violation of boundaries early in life. Eating disorders are not about food—they are about survival. They are responses to a chronic lack of safety, autonomy, and respect.

Understanding Importance of a Boundary: More Than Saying "No"

Think of a traffic light: red for stop, green for go, yellow for caution. Our boundaries function the same way. But when those signals are ignored or overridden—especially in childhood—they stop working altogether. When our internal "lights" are disabled, we lose track of what's safe or dangerous. Chaos, confusion, and emotional collapse often follow.

Total Boundary Invasion: The Core Wound

People who develop eating disorders often endure ongoing invasions of their physical, emotional, psychological, intellectual, and even creative boundaries. With no power to protect themselves, they internalize helplessness, despair, and the belief they are worthless.

Most people recognize physical abuse, sexual assault, and emotional cruelty as traumatic boundary invasions and attacks on the sense of self. But few acknowledge that overindulgence, overgratification, and overprotection can also be harmful. These violations, which give a child a sense of no boundaries, can be psychologically damaging, often without being acknowledged as dangerous.

When "Caring" Crosses a Boundary: The Hidden Harm of Overgiving

When a child is given everything without earning it, or when adults remove every challenge "to help," the child doesn't learn to cope with reality, develop motivation and skills to achieve her goals or appreciate the limits of others. She doesn't learn limits, effort, or empathy. She may grow up expecting the world to adjust to her needs and fall apart when it doesn't.

Similarly, when a child's autonomy is stifled under the guise of safety or caretaking, she loses trust in her instincts. She adapts to please others but cannot define herself. Over time, this results in deep psychological disorientation—fertile ground for an eating disorder to take root.

How It Manifests in Different Eating Disorders

• The Compulsive Overeater eats for emotional relief, not hunger. She has no inner voice that says, "That's enough."
• The Anorexic refuses food to the point of danger or death. She is unable to define her limits. She often fantasizes about disappearing.
• The Bulimic binges past her limits and purges to continue, disconnected from consequence or self-care. She blasts through boundaries and feels in control.

In each case, the individual's relationship with food mirrors their damaged relationship with boundaries. The eating disorder becomes a reenactment of boundary violations, only now self-inflicted.

Damaging Boundary Violations

Not all invasions are dramatic. These may look like love or support:

• Reading a child's diary or taking their belongings
• Choosing their clothes, friends, or meals without consent
• Shielding them from responsibility or natural consequences
• Giving without teaching effort or accountability

These acts can teach the child that her needs, preferences, and voice do not matter. 

For the older child:

• Buying cars
• Paying for cell phones, 
• Paying for the upkeep of the child's possessions
• Giving free access to credit cards

These examples create a void where the child does not recognize her needs, preferences, or voice. She'll run her life on impulse and gratification. 

These boundary assaults teach the child to perform or manipulate rather than connect. Her identity fractures. And later, her eating disorder helps her cope.

Psychological Fallout: When Coping Becomes Destruction

Over time, the person may:

• Rely on manipulation instead of honesty
• Lose authentic self-expression
• Be unable to understand limits, consequences, or effort

As relationships suffer, she grows more isolated. Her eating disorder becomes her most consistent companion—and eventually her most damaging one.

The Paradox of Protection

What once seemed to protect her now can destroy her. The eating disorder numbs pain in the short term but deepens it over time.  Numbing pain prevents her from seeing realistic challenges in her life. She doesn't see an opportunity to cope with that reality because she is numb. To lessen her dependence on her eating disorder feels dangerous, because it requires her to experience the very pain the disorder was designed to avoid.

The Turning Point: Choosing Life

Healing begins when the person says, "I've had enough pain. I need something different."

This requires learning new things she's never been taught:

• What a healthy limit feels like
• How to say no and mean it
• How to be honest without manipulating

This is hard—but possible. 

Real Healing: Learning to Honor Boundaries

With support, she can:

• Reclaim her inner space
• Build relationships with people who respect her limits
• Become her own most trustworthy caretaker

Recovery is more than symptom relief. It's a return to the self that was once silenced or split apart. That early self is immature. With eating disorder numbing in place, the person didn't develop the skills and awareness to grow and cope with challenges in a healthy, realistic way. Recovery is about growing up again, this time without the abuse and boundary invasions.

FAQ: Boundary Trauma and Eating Disorders

What is boundary trauma?

Boundary trauma includes any experience where your physical, emotional, or psychological space is repeatedly crossed, whether through abuse, control, or overindulgence.

How does boundary trauma cause eating disorders?

When someone feels powerless, they may turn to food behaviors—restricting, bingeing, purging—as a form of control or escape from fear, pain, or being overwhelmed by challenges they can't meet.

Can too much love be harmful?

No. 

Love is a deep appreciation and respect for the essence of the beloved. Joy and delight are part of appreciating the loved one's development and growing mastery in life. Encouragement, support, stability, and honest communication, taking into consideration the loved one's developmental state, promote the healthy maturation of the child.

 It replaces respect. It's a force that overrides the child's capacity to understand and cope. It erodes a child's sense of effort, limits, and reciprocity. This form of "love" can unintentionally damage autonomy and emotional development.

Overindulgence is not love.

Overindulgence gratifies the giver, allowing them to feel powerful and in control.  Eventually, overindulgence leads the giver to feel unappreciated and taken advantage of. At the same time, the person on the receiving end becomes entitled, demanding, and full of high expectations, with little effort or ability to achieve what they want through their efforts.

How do I know if boundary trauma affected me?

If you struggle with guilt for saying no, fear limits, feel overwhelmed by others' needs, or use food to manage emotion, boundary trauma may be at the root.

Is recovery possible?

Absolutely. With guidance, you can rebuild your internal compass, learn self-respect, and live without relying on disordered eating for emotional survival.

Recommended Resources

Books

• The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk – https://www.besselvanderkolk.com/resources/the-body-keeps-the-score
• Boundaries by Dr. Henry Cloud & Dr. John Townsend – https://www.boundariesbooks.com/book/boundaries/
• Eating in the Light of the Moon by Anita Johnston – https://www.dranitajohnston.com/eating-in-the-light-of-the-moon/

Articles

• "The Psychology of Boundary Violations" – Psychology Today – https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/pieces-mind/202103/the-psychology-boundary-violations
• "Why Boundaries Matter in Healing" – PsychCentral – https://psychcentral.com/lib/why-boundaries-matter-in-healing/

Websites

• National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) – https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org
• Eating Disorder Hope – https://www.eatingdisorderhope.com
• PsychCentral – https://psychcentral.com
• Eatingdisorderrecovery – https://www.eatingdisorderrecovery.net

Documentaries

• Thin – HBO Documentary on eating disorders – https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0841150/
• The Mask You Live In – https://therepresentationproject.org/film/the-mask-you-live-in/
• Miss Representation – https://therepresentationproject.org/film/miss-representation/

Podcasts

• Food Psych with Christy Harrison – https://christyharrison.com/foodpsych
• Therapist Uncensored – https://therapistuncensored.com
• The Eating Disorder Recovery Podcast – https://rebeccascritchfield.com/eating-disorder-recovery-podcast/

Closing Words

Boundary invasion or neglect may have shaped your pain—but establishing healthy boundaries can also shape your healing. If you're struggling, know this: you can learn to protect, love, and trust yourself again. You are worth that journey.

Joanna Poppink, LMFT, psychotherapist, speaker, and author of Healing Your Hungry Heart: Recovering from Your Eating Disorder, is in private practice and specializes in Eating Disorder Recovery for adult women and with an emphasis on building a fulfilling life beyond recovery. She is licensed in California, Florida, Oregon, and Utah. All appointments are virtual. Website: EatingDisorderRecovery.net